The Eightfold Path
by Nifty Kitten
Summary: Legato's past, in a nutshell


**The Eightfold Path**

Right View:

I used to have it strung on a leather cord and I carried it around in my pocket.

__

He struggled against the ropes I had used to tie him down. The chair rocked a little, but he remained bound. He cried out about how we'd been so close. I watched him for a moment. Coming to a decision, I placed my thumb on the tear duct of his right eye. He screamed, realising what I meant to do. I pressed inward, feeling his eye squish as it shifted to accomodate my finger. With a low sucking noise and a wet plop, the eye popped from its place in his socket to the palm of my hand. His screaming fell to a low moan and tears slid down one of his cheeks. It slid around a bit, slick with tears. I pulled at it, stretching the muscles and nerve, and slipped a switchblade from the back pocket of my trousers.

The muscles were tough to cut, but the nerve let the knife slide right through. His moans slipped to short gasps and I dropped the eye into my coat pocket. I watched him for a moment, savouring the image. I had to decide what to do with him now. It seemed cruel to leave him this way. Digging my fingers into his hair, I dragged his head back and drew a guideline of blood across his neck with my switchblade. I adjusted my grip and followed the line through, his throat pouring open behind the blade.

He'd gotten what he deserved. He had betrayed me. An eye for an I, after all.

Right Thought:

Once I met Master Knives, I threw it away. I no longer needed a reminder of my father's betrayal.

__

"I am a god in my own home," he'd said. I heard him say that so many times. "I am a god in my own home." And he would punish us for our failure to worship him properly. If we did not bow low enough when he entered the room or if we did not speak to him with enough respect in our voices, we would be beaten. I always understood that this was the way it must be. He was a god and we were his loyal subjects. We had to be punished if we did something inappropriate or disrespectful. My mother once criticised my father when he got drunk and refused to clean up after him when he became ill. She was punished thoroughly for her disrespectfulness and disobediance.

My father brought home some of his business associates to enjoy his hospitality. I watched the way he interacted with them. His embarassed stuttering and nervous shuffling. They spoke to him as if he were an underling. They had condescension in their voices and he accepted it as if it was his due. I saw through him that day. I saw the truth. He was no god if he could not make these men bow to his glory.

I'd found a more-than-adequate replacement, so I could forget that my father hadn't been the god-like man he'd said he was.

Right Speech:

My father had always said that a man was a god in his own home. Master Knives is a god wherever he goes.

__

As soon as they left, I came out of my room and shoved him against the wall. "Liar!" I screamed that word at him over and over again, my fists punctuating my cries. I felt as though I could beat the betrayal out of him. I wanted to hit him until he took back what I'd just seen, what I'd discovered, and made it all untrue. Instead, he crumpled at my feet, crying. My anger filled me up like a balloon and his tears were the needle that popped me. I grabbed him and shoved him into a kitchen chair, unsure what I was going to do next.

Before long, I'd tied him up and was eyeing him with a mix of hatred, betrayal, and disgust. He stared at me, fear and self-loathing in his eyes. An idea began to form in my mind.

I don't tell Master Knives what I think of him. He would never understand. He would only say that I am still _so_ human, yearning for gods to fear and worship. And he would be right.

Right Action:

I carried his body to July's Plant, just as he said. I put him down beside her and lifted his hand to touch her cage.

__

At first, I didn't realise that he was talking to me. I thought that my mind was playing tricks on me, that I was imagining the voice in my head. The voice became more and more urgent, screaming something about me raising the dead. In retrospect, it must have taken all of his remaining strength to talk to me that way, since that was before my...improvements.

His body was so heavy, much heavier than it should have been for a human man his size. I had to drag him most of the way to the Plant, his feet making ragged grooves in the sand. He looked as though his body had attempted to fold in on itself, the skin of his face caving in to reveal his bone structure.

I could feel the strength flowing back into his body. His body inflated, filled with her life.

Right Livelihood:

The first time I used my new abilities, I was in heaven. _This_, and Master Knives, was what I had been searching for.

__

They'd come after me because I was quiet and because I looked 'different'. I watched them without moving my head. I knew what they were planning. I waited patiently as they moved to surround me. My turn would come soon enough. I continued to sip at the drink in my hands. Green tea has such a soothing flavour.

Their leader laid his hand on my shoulder, squeezing tightly enough to grind the bones of his fingers into my shoulderblade. Not even bothering to look up, I decided to flex my newfound mental muscles. I nudged him, just a little, and his slipped a skinning knife out of his belt and drove it into his left eye. Hearing the thump of his body hitting the floor, I turned to face his comrades. I spent the rest of the day experimenting.

Power.

Right Effort:

I have done my best to be what Master Knives needs in a companion, expecting no reward for my efforts.

__

I saw him pick it up before we left July City, but I don't know what he did with it after that. We'd been travelling together for more than a year before he gave it to me. At first, when he aimed the gun at me, I thought he was going to kill me. I was sure I'd done something horribly wrong to deserve such a punishment. It didn't even hurt when my arm exploded from my body. Too much pain at once, I guess, must have cancelled out all of the feeling. I'll have to remember that for future reference.

I glanced over at my shoulder, surprised that I wasn't dead, wondering how Master Knives could have missed my chest, and saw that my arm was gone. I looked up at him. He was holding the arm I'd seen him with back in July City. When he started to move toward me, I closed my eyes so that he wouldn't have to see the fear in them. Because I'd closed my eyes, I didn't see exactly what he did to attach the arm to my body. I think I'm glad of that. It hurt more than anything I'd ever felt before and even after Master Knives was finished, the arm burned each time I moved it.

He has laid the hand of his dearest brother upon my shoulder. It is more praise than I deserve, but I accept it gladly.

Right Mindfulness:

Early on in our travels, Master Knives and I had passed though Hammer Ridge, my hometown. The townsfolk were excited to see me again.

__

They recognised me as soon as I set foot into the town. I'd changed, but not enough that they couldn't tell it was me. Doors were slammed and windows were barred before I'd even walked halfway down the street. I heard locks clicking into place and furniture scraping across hardwood floors. They were afraid of me. Good.

It was a game to me. An enjoyable distraction from the task at hand. I coaxed them out of their homes one by one, until there were none left to kill. Some of them hung themselves and some of them shot themselves. Toward the end, I started calling them out in twos so that I could get them to kill one another. A few stabbed each other to death and one woman killed her baby daughter by throwing her into a wall, but my personal favourite was the man I encouraged to bludgeon himself to death with a frying pan. He passed out a few times before we were finished, but eventually succeeded in removing a large part of his skull with the cast iron skillet.

They spent so much time and effort welcoming me back home that none of them could so much as get out of bed the next day.

Right Contemplation:

I stopped by the cemetary on my way out of town to pay my respects at my mother's grave.

__

When he'd killed her, I thought it was a just punishment, but now that I've seen the truth - that he was a liar and a cheat, not a god at all - I understand that she was a martyr, not a criminal. I knelt by her grave, marked only by a large rock, and asked her forgiveness for how blind I'd been as a child.

The dirt was thin and coarse between my fingers and it slid easily under the nails as I dug. It didn't take very long for me to find her. He'd only dug deep enough to cover her body so the townsfolk wouldn't see. She was clean and white. Pure. Her bones had been cleansed of her flesh. I felt as though it was fate. My mother had been returned to a virginal state.

I must have spent more than an hour there, but I left feeling as though she was looking over my shoulder, watching over me.


End file.
